Unburying Hope (37 page)

“My boyfriend is opening it,” she said
sheepishly, “but it’s going to be both of us running it eventually, I’m sure.”

“Your boyfriend can’t seem to keep away the
drug addicts that prey on the neighborhood.
 
It was bad when the store was empty, but he’s giving them
money for odd jobs.
 
So now they
hang around even during the daytime.”

“He paid them to paint the logo on the front
window.”

“Look, I’ve been on the island for 20
years.
 
These lowlifes take over
vacant spots and they set up their own shops, selling drugs, running rackets.
 
Your boyfriend giving them jobs is a
real problem.
 
It keeps the maggots
around.
 
So I suggest you start
showing up, and tell him to pack a gun.”
 
He reached under the counter, pulling out a small caliber pistol.

Celeste stepped backwards, aghast.
 
“We don’t need a gun, I’m sure.”

“Don’t be stupid.
 
Either you have a gun and pull it on those losers, or your
store will close and you’ll be on the unemployment line, standing behind them
as they pick up their government checks.”

She walked backwards to his front door.
 
“I think I should call the cops, to see
if they think Eddie is in danger.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“He’s a big boy.
 
I don’t think he’d let anyone run him without a fight.
 
But get yourself a gun, and don’t be
afraid to pop a perp.
 
The law
protects you, if you shoot in self defense.”

Celeste felt a chill in her chest.
 
She walked out the door and wandered
away towards her car, intentionally averting her eyes from the storefront.

Chapter
Thirty-Nine

The cops who showed up were no help.
 
It was an incomplete attempted robbery, they said.
 
The locked door had been left
open.
 
The gauge marks hadn’t
opened the door.
 
The door had
either been left open accidentally or the shop owner had opened it after the
attempted break-in, not seeing the damage to the wooden doorjamb in the dark.

Celeste told the female cop, ‘Shinoda’ imprinted on a plastic nametag
on her uniform shirt vest pocket, who she was, who Eddie was and explained that
she hadn’t heard from Eddie in a day.
 
“Do you think he could be in danger?” she asked the cop.

“Does he ever stay out all night?”

Celeste cringed, “Yes.
 
But
this is the third time here on the island.”

“When do you usually hear from him?”

“A day or two later.”

“He’s been gone a few times?”

“Maybe 8 or 9 times in 6 months.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry that he’s in danger.
 
There has been a lot of drug activity in that shop since it
went vacant a year ago.
 
We’ve been
casing it.
 
We’ve cleared it twice,
taken guys in.
 
But the building
owner is screwed, like a lot of people.
 
When your storefront is empty, it’s easy pickings…”

“You weren’t casing it last night?
 
You didn’t see what happened?”

“Nope, we drive by a few times each day and night.
 
Looked like a new business is going in,
and sometimes that scares away the drug dealers.”
 
The cop looked at her and said pointedly, “Your boyfriend is
a user?”

Taken aback, Celeste sputtered, “No, I don’t think so.
 
No, he’s got a little daughter, she’s
here with us.
 
He wouldn’t risk
it.
 
No, I’m sure he’s not,” she
added, when she saw the cop’s eyes narrow and look directly into her face.

“Sure?
 
You can’t always
tell who is an addict, until time passes and their teeth decay like old tobacco
chewers in China, half of each tooth burns away.”

She grimaced at the thought and remembered teasing Frank about his
perfect teeth.

“Or their skin gets broken and they scab up a lot.”

Eddie had a scab on his cheek, from tripping over a box in the store,
he said.
 
It was only the size of a
dime but it was healing slowly.

“How naive are you?” Officer Shinoda hissed under her breath.
 
“That store was closed for months.”

Celeste choked on her defensive words, “But there were black trash bags
outside it when we toured it.
 
It
looked like someone was clearing it out.”

“I bet they were.
 
Did you
look in the trash bags?”

“No.
 
It was trash.”

“Was it?
 
Meth dealers
dispose of their paraphernalia in trash bags.
 
We’ve busted three Mexican citizens outside that shop, each
carrying tens of thousands of dollars worth of ice.”

“What’s ice?”

“Crystal meth.
 
It’s powder
that’s been processed in denatured alcohol.
 
When it dries out, it becomes crystalline.”

“There were a couple of freezers when we walked through that were gone
when Eddie got the shop ready.”

“Using freezers is the fastest way to get the alcohol to evaporate, it
makes tiny crystals, which is what we found in the baggies that the dealers
were carrying.”

“So the shop was a meth lab?” Celeste asked, remembering the frequent
internet stories about garage and kitchen meth labs in Michigan.
 
And Eddie’s reticence about renting
this space.
 
He had seemed fed up
with the relentless presence of drugs and she knew that his temper had been
rising because he wanted Maui to be different.
 
But she had insisted to him that this place, near a deli and
surf shop would be an easy match, giving his new business a welcome boost.

“Nope.
 
Not a lab.
 
It’s been a dealing hangout.
 
But there were no refrigerators the
last time we had a warrant.”

“They were freezers.
 
The
kind you see at a corner store with ice cream bars for sale.
 
But there were two of them, back
against the rear wall.”

“No freezers there either when we went through.”
 
Shinoda motioned to her partner, Ryan
Komoko, a hefty Hawaiian man with a mustache that reminded her of a TV
detective she’d watched at the old lady’s apartment.

Komoko pulled up close, standing next to her.
 
He leaned in with a soothing voice that immediately reminded
her of the TV good cop, bad cop playoffs she’d seen so many times from the
green chenille sofa before her mother came home.

“Look, you seem clean.”

Her eyebrows went up, she wondered for an instant if she should get a
lawyer.
 
“Yes?”

“And your boyfriend is missing.
 
Not missing, he could be out on a bender.”

“So what?”

“He rents the space that was an active meth house.
 
He disappears.
 
Have you been texting him?”

“Yes.”

“He respond?”

“No.”

“You make it worth his while? Tell him he’ll get laid if he responds?”

Celeste’s lip curled.
 
“No,
I told him he’s missing parts of his daughter’s first weeks of school.”

“It’s the middle of the semester.
 
You just moved here?”

“Yes.”

“From…”

“Detroit.”

“Does he use meth?”

“No,” she scoffed.

“Don’t be too quick on that reply, honey”, he said, “1 in 10 Americans
have tried it.
 
You get wrapped
around and around by meth, like you are a baby goat crushed by a ten-foot boa
constrictor.
 
One hit destroys you,
and your life becomes one long squeeze until you die.”

Tears welled up in Celeste’s eyes and she looked over to see the blank
look Detective Shinoda was giving her.
 
“I don’t know.
 
He’s a very good
man.
 
He was in Afghanistan.”

The two cops looked at each other, a momentary flash of sorrow between
them.

“Military, eh?”
 
Komoko
leaned closer.

“Yes.”

“Tours of duty completed and released?”

“No, he’s either out on disability or discharged.
 
He doesn’t talk much about it but he
was deployed four times.”

“What disability?”

Celeste was surprised that she hadn’t needed to know the technical
words, but her faith in Eddie had been immediate and enduring.
 
“He has a dent in his forehead.”
 
She reached to her own temple, touching
it tenderly, measuring out a few inches to show them the size.
 
“Unexploded mortar shot at him from
close range.
 
They gave him a few
medals.”

“Is he in therapy?
 
Was he
in Rehab?
 
Is he on
anti-depressants?”

“That’s kind of personal,” she said, puzzled, remembering the masses of
pills in his toiletry bag.
 
“He’s
not in counseling, but why?”

“There’s a huge problem with vets returning with mental health problems.
 
Many get addicted to drugs, go paranoid
and either commit suicide or go to prison for violent crimes.
 
Most of the vets won’t tell the VA that
they need help, they don’t get therapy or the mood elevating drugs they need to
recover from their tours.”

“He’s not violent or suicidal.
 
We moved here so he could live his dream.”

“What’s his dream?” Shinoda asked.

“Opening a dive shop,” Celeste said, but a deeper truth rushed out of
her mouth, “reuniting with his daughter.”

“How old is his daughter?”

“8.”

“Where is she at school?”

“A little private school in the upcountry,” Celeste said with a bit of
pride.

Shinoda’s eyebrows raised, “How are you paying that tuition?”

Celeste realized in that moment just how vulnerable she and Rosalinda
were without Eddie around to consult.
 
She had no idea how Eddie got his money, aside from maybe a military
pension, but he always had cash.
 
She’d asked him about paying taxes and he had given her the same grief
about taxes that he had about using a bank.
 
She filed her tax returns religiously and knew she was
clean, but what would happen if she let him pay their bills in cash?
 
Thank god, she’d written the first
tuition payment by check.
 
She
hadn’t yet deposited the cash he’d reimbursed her with, so her bank account was
clean.
 
Whenever he gave her cash,
she used it for groceries but had used her own account for the house rent,
Rosalinda’s new clothes and, thank goodness, her tuition.

“I worked for Michigan Bell for 10 years and I’m a good saver.
 
I pay her tuition with my savings,”
Celeste said, hoping her pride in her self sufficiency would mask her inner
battle to hold back everything she knew, the ways Eddie had gracefully steered
her to use her own funds for large purchases and then reimbursed her in cash.

She wondered if he had been smart enough to intentionally position her
in this clean way.
 
He must have
been.
 
It would have been easier if
he’d gone to Rosalinda’s school and enrolled her and then paid the tuition
himself.

“You left Detroit?
 
Left
your job?
 
Why?” Detective Komoko
crossed his arms and lowered his head to stare at her.

“I was fired,” she said, her own head down in chagrin.

“Why?
 
Drugs?”

“No,” she spat, “No.
 
Because I had a fight with my best friend,” she remembered Frank’s
kindness even at the end, serving the lady that had taunted the hidden,
enraged, frightened side of herself out into the open, “and I screamed at a
customer who was driving me crazy.”

“I’m sure your boss can tell us the story.”
 
Komoko raised one eyebrow.

“Am I a suspect in anything?”
 
She looked Shinoda in the eyes.
 
“Has any crime been committed that involves either me or Eddie?”

“No.
 
Not yet.”
 
Shinoda’s eyes narrowed.
 
“Alright, then.
 
Enough for now.”
 
Shinoda motioned for Komoko to back up
a few inches, to give Celeste room to move.
 
“You go back to being the abandoned, wronged Mommy and we’ll
keep an eye on your store.”